Organizing Your Negatives

[pesphoto]

i find organization too time consuming

 

[Goodyear]

Big binder full of 'em. Some sheets labelled, most not. Finding one is going through, holding them up to the window...

 

[pesphoto]

window, bare bulb, whatever is handy at the moment.

 

[eric]

I like 1" or 2" binders per year. The bigger the binder, the more its messed up. If I do shoot a lot in one year, I'll break it down to formats (1" binder for 120 film and 1" binder for 35mm film). Starting now, I'll have another binder for 4x5. Next year, it'll be another binder with 8x10 film. Can't wait!

 

[popstar]

Never throw anything away.

I've been tidying up the past few days and found a print or two from last year that I really like.

I agree with Ash. I have found negatives/scans from an earlier period that I initially dismissed and now of which I am quite fond. If I had disposed of them earlier, I wouldn't have had the opportunity to re-evaluate my opinion. It can take some room, but I very rarely dispose of any negatives.

That said, I organize mine in Print File clear archival sleeves soon after developing. I note camera, place, and activity if relavant in the small space for notes. I then organize by date. I began doing this when I started photography many years ago, and it still serves me well.

 

[amateriat]

My organizing, unfortunately, comes in fits and starts, but the method has been consistent, at least up until recently: I use a modified version of the system David Vestal describes in The Craft Of Photography (can't say enough nice stuff about that book, which has aged surpisingly gracefully for something written in the mid-late 70s). Negs get cut, laid down on the big flatbed scanner and made into a digital "contact" which may or may not get printed on the spot (I prefer "enlarged" 11x17 contacts, the better to judge without the need for a loupe). What does get done on the spot is numbering: for example a roll numbered B092406-03, B indicates black-and-white, the first two numerals denote the month, the next two the day, the next two the year (only problem here is that if I use something like FileMaker, I really need to reverse the numerical order – ugh), and the final, hyphenated pair the series number (if more than one roll was shot). This code is also applied to any corresponding "contact" print or CD/DVD. The entire roll of film goes into a glassine envelope (I've had little to no trouble with scratches doing this, BTW), which also gets numbered, and put into a box that allows the envelopes to sit semi-sloping (not quite standing on-end; it's just a theory of mine, but i think this helps a bit in retarding curling). I can store quite a bit of film in a relatiely small space this way. (The contacts go into a separate box.)

Alas, things aren't entirely organized over here: since my last move, a lot of my setup has been re-disorganized, and I have to put it back together again (90% of the neg film is ID'd, but a fair amount of it isn't properly boxed; as far as m yslide film goes, Don't Ask). At least I've got a system, and I'm sticking to it as I sift and sort yet again. It is less painful this time around (and, amazingly, 80% of the time, I can lay my hands on a particular image in two days or less, which for me is quite something else).


- Barrett

 

[mc_vancouver]

Over half the respondents to the poll either organize infrequently or not very well or not at all. I think this speaks to a left brain/right brain conundrum. Now,before someone bites my head off, I am most definitely NOT saying that those of you who can and do organize your negatives, slides and contact sheets in some very creative and logical systems are less creative than those who do not, or have tried and failed, but what I am suggesting is that for some of us, organization is problematic and may be tied in to which hemisphere is dominant in our daily lives. One side is more intuitive (I'd call that the Apple iPhoto side) and the other is more linear and logical, the spreadsheet side.

For instance, I am terrible not only with my negs and contacts, but with receipts, taxes, and keeping a tidy desk. Ironically I like to think of myself as VERY organized when it comes to things like going on a trip, or figuring out what gear to take camping...

I really appreciate the time members have taken to describe their organizing systems. Maybe one of these will work for me. If I get around to doing it. That's the other part of the equation: actually taking the time to get organized.

Actually I perhaps misread the poll results--and I was the one that wrote the damn thing! Only the last of the three statements is for total disorganization. The middle one could be read as "Sometimes I get organized and sometimes I don't" but it could also be read as "I organize, just not every time I get the film developed."

 

[Finder]

I organized based on projects. I have one binder with contact sheets in order of shooting with a 3-digit page number. The page number corresponds to the negative sleeve page number in another binder. I write where and when on the negative sleeves and I keep my diaries in a smaller bible-size binder. I found the system to be low maintainance and simple to use.

 

[vicmortelmans]

Films are developed more often now, because my routine is getting better. Developing one or two films takes me ~40 minutes.

The next day, the whole film is scanned and the negative is cut. Takes me about 15 minutes to setup and start the scanner, which does a whole film in batch.

The negative is put in an envelop and identified by date (YYYYMMDD) and number (0001,...). This is a 5 minute job.

The envelopes are in a shoe box and most probably won't come out that often, because all raw-files are on PC (and later on DVD, when the harddisk gets cramped). Also the processed images are on PC and shifted to DVD as required.

Then the scanned images are post-processed. I'm still working on that and hope to design a set of tools that will allow me to do the job in less than 15 minutes...

Finally, prints are ordered via an online digital print service. That also can take up to a quarter or an hour (or longer, if they---again---changed their interfaces).

I also maintain a log in a Word-document, that lists for each film (based on the ID mentioned before), which film type, which ISO it was shot at, how it was developed, how it was scanned and which was the subject!

This is a very good tool to
- evaluate development methods ("how did I develop that APX400 three months ago?")
- find pictures ("which films were shot in Paris?")

Interestingly, I never considered the total time spent on one film, which adds up to ~1.5 hour. What's your hourly rate?

Groeten,
Vic

 

[Bike Tourist]

I've had a filing system based on subject matter for forty years. It works well for slides and digital images. The problem with negatives is that they are all strung together, so I put them in neg sheets and date them. Not a very satisfactory method for recalling specific shots.

 

[varjag]

Over half the respondents to the poll either organize infrequently or not very well or not at all. I think this speaks to a left brain/right brain conundrum. Now,before someone bites my head off, I am most definitely NOT saying that those of you who can and do organize your negatives, slides and contact sheets in some very creative and logical systems are less creative than those who do not, or have tried and failed, but what I am suggesting is that for some of us, organization is problematic and may be tied in to which hemisphere is dominant in our daily lives.

Well, a lot of us here (me included) are techie types and yet have no system/bookkeeping with negs. I don't think brain hemispheres have to do anything with that

 

[lubitel]

The problem for me to organize by projects is that I will have different ones on each film, a portrait, a family shot or street situation right next to each other. so I try to organize by date and right down notes on whats on film. The problem is then searching for those projects through numerous folders and drawers when you need them.

 

[rogue_designer]

The problem for me to organize by projects is that I will have different ones on each film, a portrait, a family shot or street situation right next to each other. so I try to organize by date and right down notes on whats on film. The problem is then searching for those projects through numerous folders and drawers when you need them.

Yah - I used to have a basic keyword list in excel that I could tie to the date code on the neg sleeves.

It gets fun.

 

[Nobuya]

I put my negatives/slides into three-hole Print File sleeves and store in binders. I'm in the middle of a miniproject to rescan old negatives. To make it relatively easy to find the exact frame I want to rescan, I took a digital picture of each sleeve on a light table. I wrote a Photoshop action to convert negative images into positive images. This method turned out to be much faster than making traditional contacts or using a flatbed scanner to create digital contacts.

 

[mc_vancouver]

This might be the answer, at least for me, because although I have a Mac and use iPhoto, I find it too limited; on the other hand, I have never mastered Photoshop. Adobe Lightroom, still in beta stage: take a look.

 

[ghost]

i start the filing process before shooting the roll. it gets the date(s) shot, date developed, roll# for the date developed, development notes, camera body, and lens(es) used. i use a fine tipped pen.

 

[Ash]

I've been on the case </pun> researching Kenro storage. I'm thinking of breaking a lifelong habit of cutting strips of 6, and using strips of 4!!

Kenro is local (literally across town) and I could pick up a huuuge roll of the minilab sleeving. you know, the translucent plastic sleeves negs come in for colour films.

I think it works out substantially cheaper at the sacrifice of using a ringbinder but currently I'm happy using a box file. I thought if I use the lab-sleeving, that means I can fold the whole shoot into one thick strip, put an elastic band around it, and store it in the box file in order of date with a label.... or even store in the more widely available slide-carrier boxes.

 

[Ronald M]

Only strips of 6 make darkroom contact sheets. Therefore I use 6. They go in polysleeves and then into archival envelopes.

My film scanner also uses 6 frame strips.

I you don`t darkroom, use what comes from your photo finisher. Fighting them to do something nonstandard with negs is useless.

 

[Sparrow]

Only strips of 6 make darkroom contact sheets. Therefore I use 6. They go in polysleeves and then into archival envelopes.

My film scanner also uses 6 frame strips.

I you don`t darkroom, use what comes from your photo finisher. Fighting them to do something nonstandard with negs is useless.

Amen to that, I’m thinking of having “cut into sixes” tattooed on my forehead, the single biggest problem with C41!!

 

[Photog9001]

what's organizing?